Dictatorship_and_Democracy_19181939

Dictatorship and Dem ocracy,1918–1939

Opportunism definitely played an important role in motivating the masses to join the Nazis, as did the desire to participate in a radical reorganization of society. The party attempted to penetrate, control, and organize the people and place it under permanent surveillance. It established and organized a system of blocs and cells penetrating day-to-day life in Germany. A ‘Blockwart’ (block attendant, the lowest official in the NSDAP) was in charge of about 80 households. A fifth of all party members acted as volunteers. In the National Socialists' penetration of German society, many people were given responsibilities and this created a system of omnipresent (p. 440) denunciation and observation. It equally presented an opportunity for many people to participate in establishing Nazi rule in German everyday life.

The scholarly debate in the 1970s and 1980s centered on a dispute over whether the Nazi dictatorship was an autocracy built solely on Hitler's power or a chaotic polycracy. This debate was, however, largely based on an outdated conception of dictatorship. After Paul von Hindenburg's death in 1934, Hitler made himself president by holding a plebiscite to officially legitimize this position. From then on, he was both head of government and head of state, ruling absolutely as a charismatic leader. His word was law. Hitler was anything but a weak dictator, and he was able to achieve and maintain this strength as a leader because there were many who were willing to ‘work towards the Führer’ (Ian Kershaw). These supporters anticipated his intentions and put them into practice on their own accord, radicalizing them even further in the process in order to present themselves as particularly loyal followers. This was only possible because they shared many of Hitler's views. Hitler's dictatorship was built on consensus and periodically demanded a reaffirmation of this consensus. A charismatic leader constantly has to prove himself, and Hitler managed to do so by proceeding to transform German society at an extremely rapid pace. He repeatedly confronted the German population with surprising turns, new objectives, and unexpected successes, which were especially remarkable in foreign affairs, in particular with respect to reparations, restrictions on armaments, and territorial revision. Hitler's pace in dealing with foreign affairs was as fast as it was in the Nazification of German society—much to the surprise of the public, who soon expected him to be able to cut through the same Gordian knot, which had previously given republican politicians such a hard time.

Acts of terror were one side of the National Socialists' attempts to enforce their power. Especially in the early stages, these were endemic and rather unspecific in many cases. The SA, which was founded by Ernst Röhm in 1921, had grown to an army of 400,000 men by the end of the Weimar Republic. During the early period of the Hitler regime, membership figures exploded, reaching a total of 2.5 million. The SA became the main instrument of enforcing rule during the early Nazi period. Röhm planned to build up a people's militia, which could compete with the Reichswehr. The activist SA served as a reservoir for social revolutionaries. After the seizure of power, they demanded a ‘second revolution:’ the elimination of the old elites and the formation of a people's state based on the concept of a ‘people's community’ with socialist elements. In so doing, Röhm—who had known Hitler since 1919 and was one of a select few who were allowed to address him informally—opposed the Führer. In contrast to Röhm, Hitler declared the end of the revolution on 6 July 1933. Instead of a socialist reorganization of society, Hitler championed national revisionism and imperialist expansion. For this purpose, he needed a professional army, rather than a gang of brutal thugs. On 30 June 1934, in a cloak and dagger operation, he ordered the assassination of the SA leaders and of representatives of the conservative elites who opposed his dictatorship. Neither the Reichswehr, nor the conservative nobilities, nor members of the Reichstag thwarted these measures or even protested against this course of action, despite the fact that two generals of the Reichswehr had been amongst its victims. The Reichstag, still in existence, (p. 441) passed a law introduced by Hitler to legitimize this act of state terrorism retroactively. President Hindenburg, himself a general, even congratulated Hitler on his actions. Indeed, a palpable sense of relief swept the country. Hitler had demonstrated that he was neither a social-revolutionary desperado, nor somebody who intended to radically change the order of German society.

From then on, the SA was no longer an instrument of Nazi terror. Its former functions were taken over by the regular police force, but even more often by the SS. This elite unit was founded as a paramilitary organization and perceived itself as the advocate of a ‘rational’ enforcement of Nazism. It attracted many young academics and other ambitious people. Under Heinrich Himmler's leadership, it was responsible for the construction and administration of a large number of concentration camps and later, during the war, the extermination camps. The SS was meant to become the nucleus of a new male elite fanatically committed to National Socialism, which would ruthlessly and impassively implement German rule all over Europe.

After Himmler became leader (Reichsführer) of a small guard of a few hundred stewards in 1929, he expanded the SS into a special task force of about 250,000 men at the beginning of the war. Alongside the SS, there was the security service (Sicherheits-dienst, SD), the secret state police (Geheime Staatspolizei, Gestapo), and the criminal investigation services (Kriminalpolizei, Kripo)—all of which were combined in 1939 in the Reich Main Security Office

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(Reichssicherheitshauptamt) under Himmler's control. Himmler erected a totalitarian surveillance system, which was widely used to persecute and later to murder Jews. However, the ‘SS-state’ (Eugen Kogon) was not simply based on a high density of surveillance. The Gestapo had relatively few officers, yet it was so efficient in detecting and persecuting Jews and political dissidents that it came to attain mythical status. The co-operation of ordinary citizens was crucial to its success; by voluntarily acting as informants, the Gestapo created a surveillance system which was, in a sense, selfperpetuating.

These institutions are examples of the characteristics of Nazi rule for which the German political scientist, Ernst Fraenkel, coined the term ‘dual state,’ consisting of the ‘normative’ and the ‘prerogative’ state.38 The ‘normative state’ was still in operation and in charge of all those who were neither victims nor opponents of the state. For these people, the state was in working order as usual. For the others, the ‘prerogative state’ was in charge, and this did not have to concern itself with issues of legality. Even respectable citizens without a criminal record could be taken into ‘protective custody’ (Schutzhaft) by the Gestapo—a euphemism for detention without legal basis—which was used when there was no legal means for prosecution. It was not possible to appeal against ‘protective custody.’ Ever since the seizure of power, the system of concentration camps expanded precipitously. In 1933 they were placed under the control of the SS, which carried out its acts of terror there without restriction. In the end, there were several thousand concentration camps: huge central and small local camps, as well as camps affiliated with businesses. Their existence was hardly a secret. A large concentration camp such as Dachau attained considerable economic importance for the city.39 Those living under the ‘normative state’ knew very well what to expect if they strayed (p. 442) from the permitted path. A vague fear of unnameable consequences did its bit to uphold compliance.

In so doing, the Nazis effectively hollowed the state out from within. Although most of the former institutions continued to exist, they became less important because parallel institutions emerged that took over their functions. These new institutions had grown out of the network of Nazi organizations. They were linked to the Führer personally, either under his direct control or personally connected to him. Consequently, the network of political and administrative institutions turned into an empty shell. At the same time, parastate institutions conducted the actual political and administrative tasks, unhindered by regulations. Thus, the ‘prerogative state’ systematically undermined the ‘normative state.’

This notwithstanding, Hitler's rule was not merely a reign of terror. Rather, he perceived himself as an instrument of divine providence accountable to the German people. Periodically staged rituals legitimized the plebiscitary power of the Führer and evoked his affiliation with the people. The annual party rallies in Nuremberg were spectacles of party power, which demonstrated that party, people, and state were merging together. At a huge financial cost and with an impressive mastery of cinematic technique, director Leni Riefenstahl captured the 1934 party rally on film. Hitler approached Nuremberg by plane, symbolically descending from the heavens. On the Zeppelinfeld—an area larger than twelve football pitches—he took the salute of the military parade of the German people which was symbolized through Nazi organizations differentiated by generation, region, gender, and profession. Thus, every single person in the audience could imagine him or herself as part of the party rally—and consequently of the new Germany.

The referendums Hitler used to legitimize his policies also shared the same publicly representative character. By using the same means, he made himself head of state after President Hindenburg's death (although with a disappointing result: more than 5,000,000 of the electorate either voted openly against Hitler or destroyed their ballot paper). There were plebiscites on the withdrawal from the League of Nations (1933), on the return of the Saarland to Imperial Germany (1935), and on the annexation of the Rhineland (1936) and Austria (1938). These were little more than symbolic performances, evidence of a desire to legitimize the dictatorship through the people and to turn this political act into a performative event. Clearly, Hitler did not need (or want) the political conflict that is always implied by free elections. However, he did need mass acclamation to demonstrate the affiliation between him and his people.

These forms of legitimization were the coatings of a popular consensus, albeit one exaggerated by the regime. There is, however, no doubt that this consensus existed and that Hitler enjoyed a popularity achieved by few German politicians before or after him.40 He created a consensus around a system of rule that seemed to represent the consummation of German history and the overcoming of trauma. Only a minority perceived it principally as a regime of terror. Obviously, we know much more about the public mood in societies with an unregulated public sphere than about the mood in dictatorial states. Yet the regime monitored its citizens with a thoroughness that came (p. 443) close to scientific opinion polls, if not in terms of its methodology, then at least in terms of the range of its findings.41 Naturally, the observers who wrote the reports for the SD had an interest in presenting a favorable picture, yet the reports unequivocally suggest that acceptance for Hitler's policies grew continually until the Munich Agreement of 1938. Had Hitler held free general

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Dictatorship and Dem ocracy,1918–1939

elections in the summer of 1938, he would have won approval ratings undreamt of by democratic politicians. Germans were also monitored from the outsider. The exiled leaders of the Social Democrats had installed a system of informal observers delivering relatively reliable information about everyday life and the mood in Germany.42 Even though, as undercover Social Democrats, their local observers were biased as well, their reports also show a high degree of approval for Hitler and his policies. Private records recently examined by historians point in the same direction.43 How can we explain this public approval for a dictatorship which brutally suppressed everyone not to its liking?

First of all, the regime was extremely effective at mobilizing German citizens. Many of them were involved in Nazi organizations and were assigned tasks. This type of involvement had consequences in terms of integration. Life became increasingly deprivatized and de-individualized, a process, that emphasized equality not in terms of equal opportunities, but in terms of the equal value of all citizens. This integration of all ‘Volksgenossen’ (comrades of the people) was more extensive the more it was combined with the exclusion of others: Jews, Communists, the homeless, and so-called ‘Gemeinschaftsschädlinge’ (people ‘damaging’ to the community). The exclusion of these people effectively confirmed the cohesion of the others, who now imagined themselves as a society of unambiguous mutual affiliation, a homogeneous community, even a society of equals. It goes without saying that in the 1930s this form of social order was highly attractive to many Germans.

Secondly, Nazi promises did not remain mere propaganda. Within a short period after his seizure of power, Hitler managed to tackle the main problem caused by the global economic crisis: unemployment. Hitler had learned his lesson from the defeat of the First World War, and he knew that he had to win over the loyalty of the workers and of those on the ‘Heimatfront’ (home front) for the next war. Hitler's strategies to overcome the global economic crisis did not differ much from those implemented in other countries, whether it was dictatorial states, such as Italy and Portugal, or democratic ones, such as Great Britain and the United States. The state became an active agent in the field of labor and investment. It raised money, either through loans, through restricting consumption, or through reassigning other funds (such as the reparations that were no longer paid after 1931). These funds financed job-creation measures, which predominantly focused on investments in infrastructure and, consequently, improved conditions for private enterprise.44 From as early as the last years of the Weimar Republic, motorways had been planned for the newly-developing automobile traffic. The ‘Autobahn’ was not Hitler's idea, nor was it a uniquely German one. The construction of motorways was also a means of government-funded job-creation in the United States, and it was a means of creating a demand for industrial products through public investment. In contrast to these other countries, however, investment in (p. 444) Germany was closely linked to preparations for war. The Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD, Imperial Labor Service), established in 1931 on a voluntary basis, was in 1935 turned into a six-month-long official duty for young men and was, in fact, a paramilitary organization. There were labor services in other countries, too, for instance in the USA.45 There, however, these organizations were designed to deploy cheap human labor wherever expensive machine work was not profitable enough. The American ‘Civilian Conservation Corps’ (CCC), for instance, was focused on practical environmental preservation and also offered members the opportunity to learn job skills.

Due to these measures, and the slowly improving global economic situation, unemployment could be reduced within a short period of time.46 Furthermore, the growing armaments production required so many workers that full employment was achieved in 1935–1936 and even a shortage of labor was soon reported. Subsequently, there was a substantial rise in wages so that the real wage level of 1928, at the end of the good times of the Weimar Republic, was reached again in 1937.47 Much of this money was later recovered by the state, for example, through donations and compulsory membership fees, and this funded a form of public social policy. Even though making a donation was sometimes perceived as a nuisance, people still felt that they were making a symbolic contribution to the community, not least because organizations such as the Winterhilfswerk (winter welfare organization) or ‘Kraft durch Freude’ (KdF; literally: ‘strength through joy,’ a leisure organization and part of the German Labor Front) fulfilled the functions of a welfare state. The KdF was a national holiday service that, for the first time in German history, enabled even the working class to go on holiday.48 Purchasing a cheap radio receiver (a ‘people's radio set’ produced from 1933 onwards in large quantities and at a highly affordable price) or even the hope of buying a ‘Volkswagen’ (people's car) in a few years' time, gave ordinary people the feeling of social advancement and the sense of an emerging consumer society after the subsiding global economic crisis. All this was seemingly thanks to the Führer. In this respect, the brown ‘social revolution’ (David Schoenbaum) was much more than propaganda.49 Many people rightly perceived a significant improvement in their standard of living.

On the other hand, it was obvious to well-informed people that the system was largely built on sand. The German way out of the crisis was funded by loans, and these were not used for productive investments in the usual sense.50 Most of the

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money did not fund social policy projects, but war preparations, and the planners came to expect a rich bounty from the war that would cover the debt at a later stage. In plain language: the defeated nations of the next war were expected to settle German debt. In 1933 Germany spent almost 2 billion Reich Marks on armament. By the time the war started, this expenditure had increased eighteen-fold. In the years up to 1939, more than 60 billion was spent on armaments in total— this amounted to two-thirds of the entire public spending of the Reich.51 It was impossible to raise these sums through taxation or by taking out regular loans, which is why those responsible conjured up cunning methods of taking on debt without appearing to do so. Nonetheless, by 1938–1939 Germany was up to its ears in debt, and national bankruptcy was only a matter of time. This was another reason why Hitler urged going to war. However, to argue that the war (p. 445) derived solely from a financial crisis and was merely a form of ravenously-funded social policy—as the historian Götz Aly has done—is to reverse cause and effect.52 Warfare was the vital principle of National Socialism, and not only because it was a means of reclaiming lost territories or gaining the status of a world power. Warfare was, in fact, perceived as a form of existence and was therefore at the core of Nazi ideology. Those lacking a belligerent nature were doomed. In this respect, Hitler imagined his ‘people's community’ as a war community from the outset. The world war, which Hitler had planned systematically from the beginning and which he precipitated on 1 September 1939, was a war aimed at the conquest, enslavement, and colonization of Europe.

19.8 National Socialist dictatorship in comparison with other European dictatorships

When comparing Hitler's dictatorship with other European dictatorships that developed after 1918, we can identify a large number of differences despite several similarities. The conservative dictators in central-eastern and southeastern Europe during the interwar period differed significantly from the Nazi dictatorship. Granted, most of them perceived themselves as right-wing and anti-democratic, often as racist and anti-Semitic, and at the very least nationalist. However, neither Metaxas in Greece, nor Horthy in Hungary, nor Pilsudski in Poland, nor Franco in Spain, nor Salazar in Portugal ever achieved the same extent of totalitarian control over society as Hitler. None of them constituted a dictatorship of a movement aiming at the reorganization of an entire society, and none of them came even close to radically reshaping their societies as the Nazis did. Moreover, most of these governments relied on the use of armed forces to a greater extent than the Nazis. There are two other regimes that can, and often have been compared with Nazi Germany. Hitler compared himself with Mussolini several times and they shared a cordial relationship.53 It has even been suggested that the Duce was Hitler's only friend. Mussolini provided the concept of fascism as a dictatorship of a movement with the two elements of consensus and coercion that served as a veritable blueprint for Hitler, even though the German Führer was not only incomparably more brutal in attaining and retaining power, but also more successful in doing so. Despite what his perception of himself suggested, Mussolini was never a totalitarian ruler. He had to accept compromises with the old elites throughout the entire duration of his dictatorship. The monarchy was never abolished and the King still played an active role in politics. It was these old liberal elites, along with the King, who finally deposed him from office and placed him under arrest. The fact that this was possible lays bare the difference between Mussolini's and Hitler's rule. Moreover, while Italian fascism was indeed belligerent and there were only a few years when Italian troops were not deployed (p. 446) somewhere in the world, it was never part of Mussolini's agenda to plan and conduct a world war in order to enslave Europe and ultimately conquer the entire world, as Hitler had attempted. The historian Wolfgang Schieder rightly described Italian fascism as a prototype from which German National Socialists learned and which they emulated. Sometimes, however, students outgrow their teachers.54

Stalinism, the second type of dictatorship often compared with National Socialism, is a slightly different story, because Nazism and Stalinism perceived themselves as completely different from each other in ideological terms.55 This notwithstanding, there are some similarities between both ideologies in their totalitarian control of society, their mixture of consensus and terror, and their militant self-characterization. Both forms of rule attached little value to human life when it came to achieving their aims. Stalinism, like National Socialism, was a concept that worked on the principle that the end justified the means. This became evident in the detention of millions of people in Soviet labor camps, sometimes for highly trivial reasons, or even for no reason at all. It also became evident in the Russian process of industrialization with its penchant for consuming human resources and in the methods of Russian warfare. By all available means, both regimes pursued the goal of establishing a society characterized by clearly defined affiliations, where similar individuals lived similarly, and right and wrong were easily definable, as the historians Jörg Baberowski and Anselm Doering-Manteuffel have recently argued.

Baberowski has however also raised questions about the similarities of the two regimes. In his view, Stalinism differed considerably from Nazism due to the different personalities that incarnated both regimes. Baberowski ascribes the

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specific brutality of Stalinism not so much to a reckless modernity, as is often asserted, but much more to the archaic provenance of its leader. Originally from Georgia, Stalin established a system of sadistic despotism the mindset of which was based around ideas of tribal feuds and vendettas. Stalin almost always preferred terror over consensus, relying on raw violence, intimidation and personal dependencies. Under Stalinist circumstances, Bolshevism lost its Leninist rationale that calculated terror was helpful in order to build a new society (according to the role model of French Jacobinism). One should not however overestimate this difference, as Stalin cannot be equated with Stalinism any more than Hitler can be equated with Nazism. Indeed, there were many in Russia who aspired methodically and systematically towards a new social ideal; Stalin's terror was by no means undirected insofar as it helped build a loyal Communist nomenclatura and constructed a new, industrialized and proletarianized society.

Pointing out the difference between Stalin and Hitler rightly stresses the diverging contexts of the two dictatorships. Germany, an important country in the center of Europe, a world leader in economic, scientific and cultural terms, chose as its leader a man who was little more than an unemployed, rabble-rousing politician with a criminal record, a threadbare education, and a history of involvement in a coup d'état. With little formal military training, he led the country to war, and to a genocide in which hundreds of thousands took part as perpetrators and bystanders. These circumstances were substantially different from the context in which Stalin came to (p. 447) power. The latter was a Georgian Apparatchik and professional revolutionary. He led a revolutionary cadre party that had taken control of an enormous and backward country that had just a small bourgeoisie and even smaller proletariat. That Hitler, an outsider, could achieve the position he did, cannot be explained solely by his talents, which he undoubtedly had, or by categories like ‘manipulation,’ or ‘propaganda.’ Nor can the functioning of his regime be explained with an emphasis on terror. One has to instead consider the message of National Socialism, and the ways in which the style of Hitler's politics met the desires of a great many people in Germany in the 1930s.

19.9 Conclusion: closeness between democracy and dictatorship during the interwar period

In 1918 German society was highly unsettled. After a long-running war with many victims, a war that for a long time had been expected to be successful, a large nation had been deeply humiliated and branded a pariah on the international stage. The trauma of inner discord and controversy, the unfulfilled promise of a social people's state—which was, in fact, little more than a conflict between corporate, party, and lobbying-group cliques—made democracy appear terminally inadequate. The antagonism between the desire for community, on the one hand, and the deep political cleavages and inability to compromise, on the other, bolstered the myth of the ‘community of the trenches’ even further. Political semantics infected by the spirit of war served the concepts of community and the exclusion of the enemy. Germans longed for homogeneity instead of pluralism. The leader as the expression of this concept of community, which legitimized him at the same time, had in this respect already become an idealized figure during the democratic period. The presidents of the republic had never been able to fulfill public expectations, not least because they appeared as symbols of party quarrels and cliquish behavior. Hindenburg, rather than Ebert, was able to meet expectations. His broad electoral base promoted the concept of a leader elected by the people. However, Hindenburg was a remnant of a bygone past. Hitler represented youth, social mobility, and the unity of all Germans, even of those who lived outside the territory of Weimar Germany. Essentially, he promised catharsis: he promised that all Germans would come to terms with themselves in a process of self-discovery within an ethnically and socially egalitarian society. At that time, most people were not yet aware that Hitler wanted war. However, after Hitler's successful domestic and foreign policy, they were willing to follow him even that far, albeit with limited enthusiasm. In this respect, Hitler promised to heal the wounds inflicted by World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, as well as the conflicts of democracy. The people followed him into war—initially rather hesitantly, as it had become clear how much could have been achieved (p. 448) without going to war and because the fear of war was still widespread. However, the spectacular victories made even this war popular— at least up until Stalingrad.

In summary, this would mean that the caesura of 1933 should be drawn less sharply. The years from 1918 to 1939 can be understood as a coherent historical period, because, during this time, ‘the people’ were the dominant principle of politics. Yet ‘the people’ preferred to be represented by someone with whose political actions they could identify—which was not the case when it came to quarrelling political parties. The lesson that the people are not a harmonious entity and that modern societies are always societies characterized by conflict remained to be learned, even after 1945. Even the early Federal Republic of Germany perpetuated the ideal of a harmonious society—which had by then transformed into a middle class society characterized by the ‘economic miracle’—and remained suspicious of and aggressive towards those who were different. It was, in fact, not until the 1960s that it was widely recognized that modern societies are comprised

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of differences and that the harmonious ideal hidden behind the concept of a leader and a ‘people's community’ was, at the same time, profoundly violent.

[Translated from German by Christine Brocks.]

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BESSEL, RICHARD, Germany after the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

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KERSHAW, IAN, Hitler, 2 vols (London: Allen Lane, 1998; 2000).

MAI, GUNTHER, Europa 1918–1939. Mentalitäten, Lebensweisen, Politik zwischen den Weltkrie-gen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2001).

MERGEL, THOMAS, ‘Führer, Volksgemeinschaft und Maschine. Politische Erwartungsstruk-turen in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus 1918–1936,’ in Wolfgang Hardtwig (ed.), Politische Kulturgeschichte der Zwischenkriegszeit 1918–1939 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), 91–127.

——, Parlamentarische Kultur in der Weimarer Republik. Politische Kommunikation, symbo-lische Politik und Öffentlichkeit im Reichstag (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2005).

REICHARDT, SVEN and ARMIN NOLZEN (eds), Faschismus in Italien und Deutschland. Studien zu Transfer und Vergleich

(Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005).

SCHIEDER, WOLFGANG, Faschistische Diktaturen. Studien zu Italien und Deutschland (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008).

SCHIVELBUSCH, WOILFGANG, Entfernte Verwandtschaft. Faschismus, Nationalsozialismus, New Deal 1933–1939 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2008).

SCHUMANN, DIRK, Political Violence in the Weimar Republic 1918–1933. Fight for the Streets and Fear of Civil War (New York: Berghahn, 2009).

WILDT, MICHAEL, Volksgemeinschaft als Selbstermächtigung. Gewalt gegen Juden in der deutschen Provinz 1919 bis 1939

(Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2007).

Notes:

(1.) Cf. Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Practicing Democracy. Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

(2.) Cf. Ernst Nolte, ‘Diktatur,’ in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck (eds), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, vol. I (Stuttgart: Klett Cotta, 1972), 900–924.

(3.) Cf. Thomas Mergel, ‘Führer, Volksgemeinschaft und Maschine. Politische Erwartungsstruk-turen in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus 1918–1936,’ in Wolfgang Hardtwig (ed.), Politische Kulturgeschichte der Zwischenkriegszeit 1918–1939 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005), 91–127; Jeffrey Verhey, The Spirit of 1914. Militarism, Myth, and Mobilization in Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

(4.) Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. Die politischen Ideen des deutschen

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Dictatorship and Dem ocracy,1918–1939

Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933 (Munich: DTV, 31992), 251.

(5.) Larry Eugene Jones, German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the German Party System 1918–1933 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 136, 195.

(6.) Alice Salomon, Die deutsche Volksgemeinschaft (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1926).

(7.) Cf. Michael Wildt, Volksgemeinschaft als Selbstermächtigung. Gewalt gegen Juden in der deutschen Provinz 1919 bis 1939 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2007).

(8.) Cf. Benjamin Ziemann, War Experiences in Rural Germany 1914–1923 (Oxford/New York: Berg Publishers, 2007); Richard Bessel, Germany after the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

(9.) According to Volker Berghahn, it was even this special type of ‘men of violence’ who dominated Europe in the time between the wars; Volker Berghahn, Europe in the Era of Two World Wars. From Militarism and Genocide to Civil Society 1900–1950 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 4. Gunther Mai talks about ‘reconciliation through violence’ (Versöhnung durch Gewalt), Gunther Mai, Europa 1918–1939, Mentalitäten, Lebensweisen, Politik zwischen den Weltkriegen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2001), 7.

(10.) Eberhard Kolb, Die Weimarer Republik (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002), 170ff.

(11.) Cf. Heiko Bollmeyer, Der steinige Weg zur Demokratie. Die Weimarer Nationalversammlung zwischen Kaiserreich und Republik (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2007); Mergel, Parlamentarische Kultur.

(12.) Christoph Schönberger, Das Parlament im Anstaltsstaat. Zur Theorie parlamentarischer Repräsentation in der Staatslehre des Kaiserreiches 1871–1918 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1997), 381.

(13.) Cf. on violence in general Dirk Schumann, Political Violence in the Weimar Republic 1918–1933. Fight for the Streets and Fear of Civil War (New York: Berghahn, 2009).

(14.) Martin Sabrow, Die verdrängte Verschwörung. Der Rathenau-Mord und die deutsche Gegenrevolution (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1999).

(15.) Cf. data in Mergel, Parlamentarische Kultur, 223; for the years up until 1925 revised data in Thomas Raithel, Das schwierige Spiel des Parlamentarismus. Deutscher Reichstag und französische Chambre des Députés in den Inflationskrisen der 1920er Jahre (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005), 586.

(16.) Cf. Thomas Mergel, ‘High Expectations—Deep Disappointment: Structures of Public Expectations Towards Politics in Weimar Germany,’ in Kathleen Canning et al. (eds), Weimar Publics/Weimar Subjects. Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s (New York: Berghahn, 2011).

(17.) Friedrich Ebert, Schriften, Aufzeichnungen, Reden II (Dresden: Reissner, 1926), 156.

(18.) Mergel, Führer.

(19.) Cf. Mergel, Parlamentarismus, 155–229, 362–398.

(20.) Detlef Lehnert, ‘Die unterschätzte Republik. Ein fragwürdiger Negativkonsens über das Scheitern von “Weimar” in zeitgenössicher Sicht der politischen Gegner des Nationalsozialismus,’ in Peter Steinbach and Johannes Tuchel (eds), Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 1994), 85–96.

(21.) Fritz Blaich, Staat und Verbände in Deutschland zwischen 1871 und 1945 (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979).

(22.) Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschafts-geschichte. Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges bis zur Gründung der beiden deutschen Staaten, vol 4 (Munich: Beck, 2003), 542–580. Martin Broszat, Die Machtergreifung. Der Aufstieg der NSDAP und die Zerstörung der Weimarer Republik (Munich: DTV, 1994).

(23.) On the analysis of the electorate of the NSDAP: Jürgen W. Falter, Hitlers Wähler (Munich: Beck, 1991); id., ‘The Social Bases of Political Cleavages in the Weimar Republic, 1919–1933,’ in Larry Eugene Jones and James Retallack (eds), Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992),

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371–397; Dirk Hänisch, Sozialstrukturelle Bestimmungsgründe des Wahlverhaltens in der Weimarer Republik. Eine Aggregatdatenanalyse der Ergebnisse der Reichstagswahlen, 1924–1933 (Duisburg: Sozialwissenschaftliche Kooperative, 1983); Peter Manstein, Die Mitglieder und Wähler der NSDAP 1919–1933. Untersuchungen zu ihrer schichtenspezifischen Zusammensetzung (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1990).

(24.) On the history of the NSDAP and on Hitler's biography see: Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 2 vols (London: Allen Lane, 1998; 2000); Richard J. Evans, The Coming of The Third Reich (London: Penguin, 2004).

(25.) Sven Reichardt and Armin Nolzen (eds), Faschismus in Italien und Deutschland. Studien zu Transfer und Vergleich (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005).

(26.) Wolfram Pyta, Dorfgemeinschaft und Parteipolitik 1918–1933. Die Verschränkung von Milieu und Parteien in den protestantischen Landesgebieten Deutschlands in der Weimarer Republik (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1996).

(27.) The idea that Nazism was funded predominantly by big industrialists is a myth. See Henry A Turner, Faschismus und Kapitalismus in Deutschland. Studien zum Verhältnis zwischen Nationalsozialismus und Wirtschaft. Der Weg zum Aufstieg (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972).

(28.) Conan Fischer (ed.), The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Classes in Germany (Providence R.I./Oxford: Berghahn, 1996); Jürgen W. Falter and Dirk Hänisch, ‘Die Anfälligkeit von Arbeitern gegenüber der NSDAP bei den Reichstagswahlen,’ Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 26 (1986), 179–216. Jürgen W. Falter: ‘The First German Volkspartei. The Social Foundations of the NSDAP,’ in Karl Rohe (ed.), Elections, Parties and Political Traditions. Social Foundations of German Parties and Party Systems, 1867–1987 (New York, Munich: Berg, 1990), 53–81.

(29.) Ibid.

(30.) Thomas Childers, ‘The Social Language of Politics in Germany. The Sociology of Discourse in the Weimar Republic,’ American Historical Review 95 (1990), 331–358; Dieter Ohr, Nationalsozialistische Propaganda und Weimarer Wahlen. Empirische Analysen zur Wirkung von NSDAP-Versammlungen (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1997); Gerhard Paul, Aufstand der Bilder (Bonn: Dietz, 1990).

(31.) Norbert Frei, ‘ “Machtergreifung”. Anmerkungen zu einem historischen Begriff,’ Viertel-jahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 31 (1983), 136–145.

(32.) Jozef Pilsudski, Erinnerungen und Dokumente, selected by Waclaw Lipinski, with a preface by Hermann Göring, 2 vols (Essen: Essener Verlagsanstalt, 1935).

(33.) Berghahn, Europe in the Era.

(34.) Mergel, Parlamentarische Kultur, 323–331; Thomas Mergel, ‘Das Scheitern des deutschen Tory-Konservatismus. Die Umformung der DNVP zu einer rechtsradikalen Partei 1928–1932,’ Historische Zeitschrift 276 (2003), 323–368.

(35.) Henry A. Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power. January 1933 (London: Bloomsbury, 1996).

(36.) Cf. on this still Karl-Dietrich Bracher, et al., Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung. Studien zur Errichtung des totalitären Herrschaftssystems in Deutschland 1933–1934 (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1960); Martin Broszat, The Hitler State. The Foundation and Development of the Internal Structure of the Third Reich (London: Longman, 1981), Wehler, Gesellschafts-geschichte.

(37.) Ernst Fraenkel, The Dual State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941), 3.

(38.) Ibid.

(39.) Sibylle Steinbacher, Dachau: Die Stadt und das Konzentrationslager in der NS-Zeit (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1993).

(40.) Kershaw, Hitler.

(41.) Heinz Boberach (ed.), Meldungen aus dem Reich. 1938–1945. Die geheimen Lageberichte des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS, 17 vol. (Herrsching: Pawlak, 1984).

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Dictatorship and Dem ocracy,1918–1939

(42.) Klaus Behnken, Deutschland-Berichte der Sopade 1934–40, 7 vol. (Salzhausen: Nettelbeck, 1980). These were not the only investigations conducted by Socialists, cf. Bernd Stöver, Volksgemeinschaft im Dritten Reich. Die Konsensbereitschaft der Deutschen aus der Sicht sozialistischer Exilberichte (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1993).

(43.) Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008); Götz Aly (ed.),

Volkes Stimme. Skepsis und Führervertrauen im Nationalsozialismus (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2006).

(44.) Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Entfernte Verwandtschaft: Faschismus, Nationalsozialismus, New Deal 1933–1939

(Munich: Hanser, 2005).

(45.) Kiran Klaus Patel, Soldiers of Labor. Labor Service in Nazi-Germany and New Deal America 1933–45 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

(46.) Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction. The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (London: Allen Lane, 2006).

(47.) Bernd Jürgen Wendt, Deutschland 1933–1945. Das Dritte Reich. Handbuch zur Geschichte (Hanover: Fackelträger-Verlag, 1995).

(48.) On KdF see Götz Aly, Hitlers Volksstaat. Raub, Rassenkrieg und nationaler Sozialismus (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2005); Timothy Mason, Social Policy in the Third Reich. The Working Class and the ‘National Community’

(Providence, Oxford: Berg 1993); Hasso Spode, ‘Fordism, Mass Tourism and the Third Reich. The “Strength through Joy” Seaside Resort as an Index Fossil,’ Journal of Social History, 38 (2004), 127–155.

(49.) David Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution. Class and Status in Nazi Germany 1933–1939 (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1967).

(50.) Willi Boelcke, Die Kosten von Hitlers Krieg. Kriegsfinanzierung und finanzielles Kriegserbe in Deutschland 1933– 48 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1985); Fritz Blaich, Wirtschaft und Rüstung im ‘Dritten Reich’ (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1987); Hans-Erich Volkmann, ‘Die NS-Wirtschaft in Vorbereitung des Krieges,’ in Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (ed.), Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol I, (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1979) 177–368.

(51.) Data in Blaich, Wirtschaft und Rüstung, 83; Boelcke, Kosten, 28.

(52.) Aly, Hitlers Volksstaat.

(53.) Cf. Wolfgang Schieder, Faschistische Diktaturen. Studien zu Italien und Deutschland (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2008).

(54.) Schieder, Diktaturen.

(55.) Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives (London: HarperCollins, 1991); Jörg Baberowski and Anselm DöringManteuffel, Ordnung durch Terror (Bonn: Dietz, 2006), especially for the following. On the parallels and divergences of Nazi and Soviet Society, see also Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin, Stalinism and Nazism. Dictatorships in Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick, Beyond Totalitarianism. Stalinism and Nazism Compared (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Thomas Mergel

Thomas Mergel is Professor of Modern History at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

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